Maintenance of an ink-jet printhead is a combination of a specific number of nozzle fires (spits) to clear the nozzles of debris and drying or dried ink, wiping the nozzle plate to remove ink and debris (wipes), and sealing the environment around the nozzles (capping) to prevent ink from drying in the nozzles during periods of non-use. Operations of the printer to maintain the printhead nozzles is highly dependent on the design of the printhead. Such factors as nozzle geometry, heater design and the formulation of the ink all affect the frequency at which wiping must be done, the number of wipes, the number of spits and the intervals at which spits must take place, and the duration of each spit, in order to obtain optimum maintenance.
In order to use a new printhead design in an already existing printer, the maintenance design or algorithm may require modification to adequately maintain the new printhead. In the past, improved printheads might not be incorporated into existing printers if the maintenance requirements of the new printheads were too different from the requirements of the printheads for which the maintenance program was designed. Alternatively, a printer incorporating an appropriate maintenance algorithm was designed for use with printheads of the new design.